Molly's reading

[naomikritzer]

Molly learned to read last December. She spent several months mostly reading picture books, and gravitating in particular to the Easy Readers, books with nice big print, simple words, etc. Ed and I had tried to teach her to sound things out, but when she started reading she mostly did it with word recognition. December was when she started picking up books independently, but even before then, she recognized some words; her preschool teacher told us in the fall that she'd learned to be careful with what she wrote where Molly could see, particularly the word "Molly," since Molly would immediately ask, "What are you writing about me?"

In April, when we traveled to Boston, Molly was reading chapter books, but prefered picture books. This was a problem, because she would go through an enormous pile of books each week, and there was no way we could bring that many with us to Boston. I picked up a bunch of paperback children's chapter books at Half Price and we took those along, instead. Molly made do.

By early summer, she had mostly switched to chapter books. She read all the American Girls books. She read the entire Junie B. Jones series. Most recently, she's been reading the Boxcar Children and Encyclopedia Brown (both of these are mystery series for young children). She's finishing the All of a Kind Family books, which I remember really fondly from my own childhood. Today, she asked me about a Nancy Drew novel I'd pulled out at some point, and I told her that she might enjoy it more in a couple of years; Nancy is eighteen, so I thought Molly might have trouble identifying with her. I came home from grocery shopping, and she had just finished the Nancy Drew book, and wanted to know if there were any more. As it happens, I had five more stashed upstairs, so for once, Molly got immediate literary gratification. (Note to self: to get Molly to read a book, tell her, "oh, you can read this if you want, but I don't think you're really old enough to understand it yet." Additional note: be sure to note that she can read it if she wants to, or she'll obediently stay away from it. For now.)

She has a favorite reading spot, which is the corner of the loveseat, next to the end table. We stashed a bunch of bookmarks in cups for her, because we'd call her to come to dinner, and she'd complain loudly that she didn't have a bookmark and expect us to find one for her. The bookmark cache has worked quite well to solve that problem, and as a bonus, it's now easy for me to find a bookmark when I need one.

Recommendations of favorite childhood books are welcome. I know I've complained about this before, but let me just note it again: it is startlingly difficult to find books at the right level for a young kid. Libraries have a YA section and a children's section. The children's section at the "young" end includes chapter books that feature the Berenstein Bears, Arthur, and Angelina Ballerina (interestingly, Molly hasn't shown much interest in these, despite liking Arthur and Angelina a lot as picture books; she tried an Angelina chapter book, and a couple of Arthur chapter books, but hasn't sought them out again). The same section includes books like Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, which is a historical novel about a black family in the American south. It's an excellent but extremely disturbing book, and includes the lynching of a child, one of the close friends of the protagonist. Roll of Thunder is shelved right next to All of a Kind Family, which is a heartwarming, upbeat book about a Jewish family living in the lower east side of NYC in the early 20th century.

This is why series books are so wildly successful: you can go to the library, pick up another dozen Boxcar Children books, and be set for the week. Some little kids (it's not just Molly) are voracious readers. Molly is the kind of reader I would be if I had no responsibilities and no access to the Internet. Or rather, Molly is the kind of reader I was back when I had no responsibilities and no Internet to distract me. Sadly, a lot of my favorite authors have vanished. Ruth Chew can be found only at the occasional rummage sale. Caddie Woodlawn is still available everywhere, but Brink's other books, like The Pink Motel, are long gone. (I found a copy of Baby Island at a used bookstore and gave it to Molly. She was riveted.)

Comments

[jiawen]

I don't remember many books from my childhood, and I haven't known enough kids to say much, but I do remember very fondly The Phantom Tollbooth. Kind of like Phil Dick for kids, it has a lot of very interesting and thought-provoking ideas in it, but is still very fun and appropriate for a kid.

[naomikritzer]

Oh, good thought. I might get that one for her for her birthday.

[silkblade.livejournal.com]

I really liked the Happy Hollisters when I was younger. My mom had some of them. It's a series of mystery novels, being solved by seven, I think, brothers and sisters.

[lilisonna.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I enjoyed those as well. They're a younger slant on the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys series if my memory serves.

[naomikritzer]

I've never even heard of this series before. It sounds like something Molly would love. I just looked in my library's catalog, and they have five Happy Hollisters books -- all in a special collection, "for use in library." I'll have to keep an eye out for them at rummage sales.

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

When I was just a little bit older than Molly, I discovered Elizabeth Enright's Gone-Away Lake and fell in love with it. There's Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy books, which have the advantage of starting when the girls are about Molly's age and then gradually increasing in complexity as they grow up. And they're set in Minnesota, too, so there's the opportunity for local field trips.

I read a lot of Bobbsey Twins when I was her age, I don't know if they're still in the libraries or not. I was also fond of the Lucy Fitch perkins series of "twins" books, but I really wouldn't recommend them, as they're a bit sexist--they're about fraternal twins of each sex in different cultures written in the 1910's.

[naomikritzer]

I found some Elizabeth Enright at a used book sale and snapped it up -- not Gone-Away Lake, but "The Four Story Mistake" and one of the others about that family. I didn't remember the plots at all, but I remembered the author's name as one I'd sought out as a kid. Molly hasn't picked it up yet.

Molly read Betsy-Tacy and Betsy-Tacy and Tib, and then one or two of the others, and then hit "Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown" and hasn't finished it. I think she's hit the point where the characters are doing things that no longer interest her. (I never read these. There was something about the Betsy-Tacy cult that I found off-putting as a kid -- seriously, I'm pretty sure that was why I never picked them up.)

The Bobbsey Twins appear to be available at my library. I never read those, either, but I think Molly would probably like them.

[irihs.livejournal.com]

I have to assume that you know about the Ramona books, by Beverly Cleary. Definitely my favorite series when I was around Molly's age. In face, I beieve the first one starts with Ramona just starting out kindergarten, so the timing would be great for Molly. It sounds like they wouldn't be a reading challenge for her at this point, but I bet she'd enjoy them.

What about the Little House on the Prairie series? Those would be more of a challenge for her, but I bet she'd find them fascinating. I remember loving the descriptions of everyday life, cooking, crafts, etc.

[naomikritzer]

Ed read the entire Ramona series to Molly as bedtime stories. I was rather delighted to find out that two books had been added since my childhood, Ramona Forever and Ramona's World. Those are really fun books, and you're right, she loved them.

Molly finds the Little House books interesting when I read them to her, but doesn't seem inclined to read them on her own. I have some hesitations about encouraging her to read them on her own anyway, given the appalling racism. ("The only good Indian is a dead Indian" -- egads.) I found them both fascinating and appalling as an adult, when I re-read them.

[racebannon42.livejournal.com]

I loved the Boxcar Kids!
I'll second the Little House and Beverly Cleary recs too.

In addition I was fond of Judy Blume, and of The Great Brain books.
Oh and "The Littles"

[naomikritzer]

I tried to get her to read The Littles and she wouldn't. What's up with that? :sigh: I also tried to get her to read the Great Brain books. I think she was put off by the fact that they were about a boy. She's seemed a little more open lately to books about boys.

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

E. Nesbit is mostly still in print. So is Edward Eager, I think.

"Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet" and its sequels. I often mention them as starting my interest in science fiction at age 6 or so.

[naomikritzer]

Ohhhhh, I LOVED E. Nesbit and Edward Eager. We read her "Half Magic" a few months ago. She kind of shies away from reading fantasy -- do you have any idea how crazy that makes me?

I checked out "The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet" but it's about boys, and she prefers books about girls. :rolls eyes:

[(Anonymous)]

My 6 year old daughter is obsessed with the Rainbow Magic series. The first group is the Rainbow fairies. The next are the weather fairies. My daughter has read them all at least 3 times, and acts them out with her toys too. They are really fun reads and are early chapter books. The author is Daisy Meadows.

[naomikritzer]

Oh! Yeah! Molly LOVES those. She won't read Holly Black's Spiderwick chronicles, but books about fluffy friendly cutesy fairies, she likes fine.

She's read the Rainbow ones, and we're looking for the weather ones at the library.

[maggiedr.livejournal.com]

I was lucky because when I was a child, I had my mother's considerable collection of *her* childhood books to read from, along with what she'd bought for my older sisters.

This was a common issue posed to me when I worked at Border's. You might want to check out a local Borders because they do have an early reader's section that is independent of the Independent Reader and Young Adult. They also have "spinner" books that are easy to read.

Although Molly has obviously crossed from early reader into the IR world. However, there are some early reader series that she might still enjoy:
Secrets of Droon
Magic Treehouse
Geronimo Stilton
Anything by Louis Sachar, Marvin Redpost is his early reader series
Katie Kazoo
Captain Underpants
Time Warp Trio

And there are more. Those are all in paperback and available at the library, I believe.

Beverly Cleary is an excellent suggestion. Books by Nancy Carlson (which wind up with picture books) are great. Has she done the Little House series yet?

I'd also suggest splurging, or asking relatives to give for birthdays etc, on large story anthologies that have classic fairy tales, folk tales, and other classic collections. I recall having all those as a child, and reading them repeatedly. I can't think of how many times I pored through Grimm's fairy tales or Hans Christian Anderson--although Anderson was depressing.

I don't know if you were at that panel last November at the Worldcon in Madison where authors talked about "dark fantasy" in children's literature. Jane Yolen, Charles DeLint and some others were on the panel. It was interesting to listen to them, they said they frequently felt their work was categorized for younger readers than they intended.

At any rate, this is a good problem to have. It is a problem, but better than the alternative.

[naomikritzer]

Much better than the alternative, absolutely.

A thick, nicely illustrated anthology of fairy tales would be a fabulous birthday gift, I totally agree. I picked up an illustrated "Tales of Grimm and Anderson" at a garage sale a few months back and she's liked that a lot. Any suggestions on editions to look for? It has to be illustrated, non-Disneyfied (would you believe I once saw a non-Disney anthology with a version of the Little Mermaid that followed the Disney plot? ::grabs smelling salts:: I was appalled) and yet not as utterly grim as the collections for adults. They can leave out Allerleiruah, for instance; stories of mad kings who want to rape their daughters were never written for children to read. And if the evil queen from Snow White simply falls down dead in fury instead of being forced to put on red-hot shoes and dance herself to death, I think that's a reasonable level of bowdlerization for actual children's fairy tale collections.

I didn't go to that panel, but it sounds really interesting. I said in response to an earlier comment that Molly doesn't like fantasy, but the Rainbow Magic suggestion reminded me that this isn't true. She shies away from what I think of as good fantasy. She likes fluffy cute fairies just fine. She asked me at some point whether fairies really existed, and I told her a little bit about actual folklore, and how there were definitely people who believed in fairies, but that in the stories you'd hear from them, fairies were not actually creatures you'd want to get to know. Since then she's asked me whether books about fairies talked about nice fairies or mean fairies, and has carefully stayed away from anything at all dark (which is to say, interesting.) But she's pretty good at evaluating the likely grimness of a book and avoiding scary and disturbing stuff. There are plenty of Jane Yolen books I would give her to read, but "The Devil's Arithmetic," for instance, would not be on the list. We own a copy of Coraline, but that book is so scary it gave me nightmares. Neil Gaiman insists that adults find that book scarier than children do, but I still don't think Molly's ready for the "mother" with black button eyes. ::shudder:: Yikes.

Childhood books

[muneraven.livejournal.com]

Many of the books already mentioned were well-loved by me as well. I can add some:

The Baum Oz books. The hardcover additions based on the originals have FABULOUS illustrations, too.

Not only Bevery Cleary's Ramona books, but all her kid's books. I loved the ones about Ralph the mouse.

EB White's kids' books, though you might want to discuss certain aspects of "Charlotte's Web" with little children. (no spoilers, lol)

Frances Hodgson Burnett's "A Little Princess" and
"The Secret Garden." Might be a tad advanced yet, I can't recall. There are wonderful movies based on both books, too.

I liked "The Bobbsey Twin" books when I was very young. They were my precursor to Nancy Drew. The very old versions of this series have some racial stereotypes in them, as in Black servants named Sam and Dinah. However, I read them so young that I thought Sam and Dinah were in fact the PARENTS of the Bobbsey Twins because they cooked and watched the kids. Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey were a mystery to me . . .I thought they were distant relatives, the way they were so removed from everyday household activities. LOL. It never occurred to me that it was odd that four white kids might have African American parents. But anyway, any versions after the sixties are cleaned up and the stereotypes are gone.

I have a 12 year old who reads at a college level, lol, so I feel your pain about choosing books. What do you do with a 12 year old boy who has the verbal abilities of a 22 year old, the social skills of a seven year old year old, and the rest is all over the map? He also reads faster than I do (and I read quickly). Anyway, I just ask people for recommendations, cross my fingers a lot, and take my son to Cons: It's not to early to show him where smart people with geeky interests hang out, lol.

I also remind myself that I read things that were far too advanced or scary or weird for my age and it didn't kill me. ;-)

Re: Childhood books

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

Ha, I just said pretty much the same thing about the Bobbsey Twins up above--older editons sort of bad in the race department, newer ones better, distant parents, Sam and Dinah much more involved, etc.

They aren't, though, nearly as bad as Cherry Ames, which I would NEVER let a child under the age of 10 or so read. They are appallingly racist, particularly towards the Japanese--which makes sense when put in their historical context, but I wouldn't want a young child reading phrases like, "yellow-skinned Jap" without a whopping dose of context.

[librarianpm.livejournal.com]

When I was Molly's age, the sure-fire way to get me *not* to read something was to for my older sisters or mom to show me a book that they had loved. I'm glad to hear Molly doesn't have that particularly contrariness yet!

Along the lines of the Boxcar mysteries is a newer series called the "A to Z Mysteries" which might last her a while as well.

If she would get into books with silly grown-ups as main characters, the Mrs Piggle Wiggle books and the Amelia Bedelia series would probably be at the right level.

I adored (and still adore) the Noel Streatfield "Shoes" book series. Very sweet stories about various siblings in Britain, usually with some talent for dancing, singing, or acting. The most well-known is Ballet Shoes.

For a younger "kid detective" series than Encyclopedia Brown, there's always Nate the Great. The "Great Brain" series I also remember being fascinated with, I remember the main character being kind of an impish Tom Sawyer but with less Twain boring text. Though I wonder now if it's too old-fashioned to hold up.

Has she shown interest in fantasy yet? The Prydain books were my introduction, I think they hold up well too.

I would also recommend Joan Aiken's "Wolves of Willoughby Chase" series. I loved their darkness, though the first one is really better than all the rest.

[naomikritzer]

Ohhhhhhhh, unfortunately, Molly seems to have that reaction a good part of the time. Some of the time, I seem to be able to get away with it.

I will look for the A to Z mysteries. She's already read the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books (and loved them; she found them hilarious) and the Amelia Bedelia series (which she also found very funny). I LOVED the Noel Streatfield books, and had totally forgotten about them. I'll have to track those down.

I've seen the Nate the Great books in the library and Molly may have even read some of them. I loved the Great Brain series as a kid; they're historical (and were written as historical) and from what I can tell (they're still in print, and easy to find) they're still pretty popular.

Molly doesn't read much fantasy, aside from the incredibly fluffy Rainbow Fairies.

I loved "Wolves of Willoughby Chase." We even own a copy. Molly hasn't picked it up yet, though.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I remember liking Edward Eager and Mary Norton quite a lot at that stage.

If she likes animals, the Walter Farley and Jack Kjelgard books could occupy her for quite a while.

[naomikritzer]

When books comes home with animal protagonists, she ignores them. Alas.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

I loved the Borrowers series, but then, I'm interested in miniatures. On the other hand I also loved reading the encyclopedia...

[naomikritzer]

Yeah, Molly wanted an explanation of encyclopedias, to go along with Encyclopedia Brown. I showed her Wikipedia, but it's not the same as pointing at the bookshelf and saying, "Go look up Saturn."

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

The All of a Kind Family! I loved those books. (Given that I lived in a small, rural, southern, extremely Protestant town, they were my introductory course in Judaism.)

My husband dearly loved the Moomintroll books by Tove Jansson, and there are at least six or seven of them, so that might help. (I can't recommend them myself, as I tried to read them as an adult and it just didn't click.) Also, if you can find them, Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons, which is about kids who sail and have adventures in the Lake Country (and beyond, as one of the books is titled We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea).

Have you tried M. M. Kaye's The Ordinary Princess? Astrid Lindgren's Pippi Longstocking series (though it, too, if I recall correctly, has racial issues...)? P.L. Travers' Mary Poppins books?

I loved Richard Peck's The Ghost Belonged to Me and Ghosts I Have Been but am not sure if they are at Molly's reading level. Same for Elizabeth George Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond (but skip Calico Captive; I liked it as a kid but as an adult realized that it is chock full of "only good Indian..." philosophy).

[naomikritzer]

I've never heard of most of these. I will absolutely have to look around for them. I did read Astrid Lindgren pretty extensively as a kid -- I remember LOVING "Ronia, the Robber's Daughter" and "The Brothers Lionheart."

She's definitely not ready for Richard Peck; his books were YA before YA was a category, IIRC. I loved "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" as a kid -- I wore out my copy and replaced it at some point. It's too old for her right now, though, I think, but maybe in a few years. I read it when I was 9.

I ran across a website earlier this year that critiqued a number of children's books from a Native American perspective. They talk about "captivity novels" in their FAQ, saying that the problem with them is that "they are, by their very nature, stories told by outsiders, about cultures and peoples who are foreign and feared. Rather than telling truthful stories about the lives of real peoples, the authors rewrite, reshape and reinterpret the cultures, providing scary stories by outsiders for the consumption of non-Native children." Nonetheless, I loved captivity novels when I was a kid. The kidnapping created a sense of danger, yet the kidnappers were usually fairly kind. (In most captivity novels, the children are basically adopted into Indian families.) Also, I was always fascinated by anything ethnographic, so a story in which a child like me was plunged into a foreign environment and forced to learn new customs -- that was right up my alley. So for all the reasons these stories were problematic, I loved them.

(Now, I read SF and fantasy instead.)

[kuddliphish.livejournal.com]

I really liked books about animals when I first started to read (I was older than Molly though) Ralph S Mouse, Black Beauty, 101 Dalmations, Bunnicula.

The Three Investigators was a mystery series that I enjoyed more than Nancy Drew. I also like the Saddle Club, Sweet Valley Twins, and The Babysitters Club. I'm fairly certain that there are companion series for younger kids called Sweet Valley Kids and Babysitter's Club Kid Sisters, but I don't know anything about the quality of those books. To be fair the quality of the original series probably isn't very high, but I enjoyed them.

[naomikritzer]

Ohhhhhhhhh, I totally forgot about the Three Investigators. There's exactly one title at my local library, but I will be sure to watch for those at book sales.

Babysitter's Club is still around, in spades. Sweet Valley High, not so much. I was too old for Babysitter's Club when it started appearing, and I had total contempt for the romance plots of Sweet Valley High, so I don't have the nostalgic memories pushing me to nudge Molly towards those series.

I loved the Mouse & The Motorcycle. We have a copy, but Molly has resisted picking it up.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

E.B. White. (Trumpet of the Swan, etc.) Isn't series stuff, and I bounced off _Stuart Little_ pretty hard (a mouse? being born to a human? No!), but the ones not-Stuart Little are great.

If you can find the "Famous Five' series (Enid Blyton), they're pretty fun. (English, but fun. And about young kids.)

THings by Robert Lawson, Jane Linskold, the couple of Homer Price books by Robert McClosky... Libriarianpm already got Mrs. Piggle Wiggle and Amelia Bedelia. (Actually, I second a lot of eir suggestions.)

[naomikritzer]

Ohhhhh, I remember hearing my friends talk nostalgically about the Famous Five when I was living in England. I own some Enid Blyton, but what I've got is the Girls of St. Clare series.

Lots of Americans don't realize the extent to which Harry Potter is part of a grand tradition within British children's literature of coming-of-age series stories set at boarding schools. The St. Clare series was a fine example of this. It's unbelievably classist and full of stereotypes (mostly of the French, though, which is pretty safe even now) but I think they're still popular over in England. I poked through amazon.co.uk and it looks like they may have hired someone to revise them and released new editions. (Judging from the one-sentence story summaries, though, they kept the goofy French accents.)

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

When I was just slightly older than Molly I really liked a series by one Eve Garnett that starts with The Family from One End Street. It's set in some town in the Midlands, I think, sometime between the wars, I think. (Before they started vaccinating for measles, I know that much. And when dust-carts were still pulled by horses.)

I second All-of-a-Kind Family, E. Nesbitt, and Noel Streatfeild. I don't recommend Enid Blyton quite so heartily as I used to, having recently re-read The Castle of Adventure et seq. and found them slightly appalling for the same sorts of reasons as Cherry Ames, and also repetitive and boring. IIRC the Famous Fives were better.

Also a really early Andre Norton called Steel Magic (or possibly Grey Magic, depending on where your copy was published). It's fantasy, but not exactly; it's about three American kids who stumble into Arthurian Britain and have to save the world armed only with a spoon, a fork, and a knife. (It's better than it sounds, honest!)

I also recommend the work of Jean Little, although most of them are probably geared to a slightly older audience (none of them are scary like Roll of Thunder, but many of them have heroines who are coming up to the teens). My favourites when I was a kid were From Anna, which is about a six-year-old girl immigrating to Canada from Germany (guess why?) and the life-altering experience of getting glasses, and Stand in the Wind, which is about learning to get along with others and all that stuff, but I really adored the protagonist, Martha.

I am handicapped in this literature search by the fact that I didn't learn to read independently until I was nearly seven. I can, however, categorically state that you should not let Molly read whatever kiddie version of Jane Eyre my parents bought me when I was eight (in their defence, we were living in Spain at the time, and the supply of English-language kids' books was totally unequal to my demands as a reader), because the Bertha Rochester scene gave me nightmares for months.

[naomikritzer]

Ha! My mother tried to get me to read Jane Eyre when I was about nine. I found it too boring for words. I'd make it up to the point where she got hired as a governess, and then give up. The character I found most interesting was Jane's friend who dies in boarding school, and she dies a quarter of the way into the book.

I have Jean Little's autobiography for children -- apparently she herself is visually handicapped, and From Anna is based loosely on her own childhood. I don't remember what all else she wrote, just that I liked it.

Young Kid classic book list

[yankee-in-texas.livejournal.com]

The Pink Motel??? Oh, I had forgotten about that one. I love that book.
My daughter is reading now too, and while she's still at the Easy Reader stage (because she likes reading to be easy), I've been trying to think of what to move on with. I don't remember what Molly has already gone through, though. If she likes Nancy Drew she might like The Hardy Boys. Here's my mental list:
White: Charlotte's Web; The Trumpet of the Swan; Stuart Little;
Burnett: The Secret Garden; A Little Princess; Little Lord Fauntleroy;
Milne: Winnie-The-Pooh; The 100 Acre Wood;
Alcott: Under The Lilacs; Jack and Jill; Eight Cousins;
Wilder: Little House books;
Montgomery: Anne of Green Gables;
Wiggen: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm;
Babbitt: Tuck Everlasting
O'Hara: My Friend Flicka [very sad in places]
Farley: The Black Stallion books (tons of them)
Terhune: The collie books (Lad: A Dog and its many many sequels like Wolf; Gray Dawn)

Many of those have themes that a little kid won't fully grasp, but I loved them when I was little and then reread them many, many times and still love them. IIRC the Black Stallion and collie books are very kid-friendly.

Re: Young Kid classic book list

[naomikritzer]

Babbitt: Tuck Everlasting
O'Hara: My Friend Flicka [very sad in places]

Geez, you noted that for "My Friend Flicka" and not "Tuck Everlasting"? ::crosses "My Friend Flicka" off books-to-read list because if it's THAT sad, I sure don't want to read it:: (Kidding!)

[maevele.livejournal.com]

what about trixie belden? if she likes the whole mystery thing, she'd probably like those, and there were like 30 of them back when i read them.

[squigsoup.livejournal.com]

Forgive me if this has been done--Paddington books? There are a few, and I remember enjoying them a lot.

My favorite kids books, that I of course still read

[(Anonymous)]

Who doesn't love MM Kaye? The Ordinary Princess is my very favorite kid's book ever, in fact, I checked it out of the library just a couple of weeks ago.

The Mary Poppins books.

I'm so glad to know that kids are still reading the All of a Kind Family books. I loved those.

Anything by Lois Lowry, especially the Anastasia Krupnick books. Also Number the Stars and The Giver (1st of a trilogy).

Miles of smiles,

Amy

Barkham Street

[(Anonymous)]

Would it be too early for _A Dog on Barkham Street_ and _The Bully of Barkham Street_ by Mary Stolz?

I don’t know much about children’s reading levels, but would consider these about as difficult as the Great Brain books, maybe a little easier even. They have occasional black-and-white illustrations.

The protagonists are in the 4th and 5th grades respectively, and have to deal with responsibilities like telling Mom “I used up all the freezer tape on my model airplane” and walking the dog without being reminded.

I enjoyed these books as a child and, as an adult, am very glad I was exposed to them because of how they show a conflict from two different perspectives.

Amazon tells me there’s a third book, _The Explorer of Barkham Street_. The protagonist is now 13. It was written about 20 years ago; you can tell I haven’t been paying attention! :-) The first two books were written during the 60's.

Fillard

Re: Barkham Street

[(Anonymous)]

Oh right, you said Molly prefers stories about girls. That plus the characters being a few years older than she is plus the illustration deficiency may put it over some kind of threshold.

I don't use LiveJournal much... is there a way to get it to show all 50+ replies together on a single page? Clicking the speech balloon next to your journal entry shows me some of the replies in full and provides links to the rest. Apparently I have to click on each of said links individually to read the remaining replies. (I have JavaScript turned off, if that makes a difference.)

My sister wrote and illustrated a copy of Snow White for my brother many years back, and the last page was indeed of the queen dancing herself to death with the red-hot shoes. I don't know that I have a coherent opinion on authenticity, bowlderization, and creative retellings; I have no compunctions about doing traditional folkdances with my own highly inauthentic styling...

Fillard